Building Collaborative Scholarship in an Academic Nursing Community

Abstract

In this article, authors report one College of Nursing's efforts to address the challenges of multiple academic role expectations by establishing faculty interest groups to promote collaborative scholarship. The background of the project is described in terms of past and recent academic, financial, and environmental influences. Collaborative scholarship is defined. Literature related to faculty productivity, variations in collaborative scholarship within and across disciplines, and incentives to motivate and reward faculty productivity are discussed. An evaluation of one faculty interest group's process is reported. Amey and Brown's Interdisciplinary Collaboration Model dimensions were used to analyze achievements and challenges. Organizational restructuring and disbandment of these groups provided a second opportunity to reflect on lessons learned. One perspective about the process and educational and professional implications of collaborative scholarship that would be of interest to faculty is provided. Lessons learned may inform other faculty facing the same task.

African American Social Work Faculty

“…Garnering more scholarly visibility was also attributed to working on interdisciplinary teams and publishing in journals outside of the profession. This finding, however, was also not surprisingly aligned with the extant literature, including the suggestions to make sure, when writing collaboratively on research projects, individual contributions, and authorships are clearly delineated (Abrizah et al, 2014;Coggburn & Neely, 2015;Duffy et al, 2013;Feinberg, Watnick, & Sacks, 2011;Paul et al, 2002;Thompson, Galbraith, & Pedro, 2010;Woo, Kang, & Martin, 2013).…”

Confronting the social mandate for nursing scholarship – One school of nursing’s journey.

“…The development of the discipline of nursing is a global challenge amidst reduced funding levels for research and the increased demands on nursing faculty (Edwards & MacDonald, 2009;Segrott et al, 2006;Thompson et al, 2010). At the same time, there is momentum and capacity in nursing research that over the past four decades continues to flourish and make a difference to population health.…”